Rain, rent and relatives

Canberra is a pretty dry city, usually.  What we had on Saturday was a once in a couple of years rainstorm, which lasted pretty much all day.  If we hadn't have had four consecutive days of something similar in the UK a couple of weeks ago after our own particularly dry summer I'd say it was unusual.  Unusual weather for Australia, well maybe just weather as opposed to climate!!! So it rained, and the storm drains had all of a metre of water in them and there was some wind and some trees fell over.  Wuss trees. This morning was back to one of the clear crisp winter mornings that Canberra is meant to be famous for, and it was pretty good.  Its a bit strange being catapulted back into Winter again in early September but in a way its quite nice.  Still can't get over the combination of tropical birds and contemplating gloves! We went for a walk on Saturday afternoon with the adopted family (!), the kids huddled and moaning at the (at worst) blustery weather, the dog (who practically deserves his own post) being mildly confused.

With the adopted family I've kind of been catapulted into a social life, which is no bad thing, its good to talk to people, rather than hiding away in a hostel room which was very nearly my fate!  Went to a dinner party hosted by David Cameron who kept saying far out, in a way that seems very mid-90s but is probably just Australian!  And on Sunday I was introduced to one side of the extended family for a 2-year old's birthday party.  Its been quite surreal but to be fair, I'm pretty thankful for the human interaction at this point!

I've also begun my search for a room in a shared house.  Canberra's housing stock is fairly rubbish.  Most places are pretty poor, and the people and fairly uninspiring.  Some places are all-right but the people aren't great. One place was pretty much a slum with one of the tenants living in a caravan outside the front.  A lot suffer from that Oxford affliction of being a normal sized house with an ill-advised extension on the back adding extra rooms and blocking all light to the rest of the house. There's not much out there at this time of year (houses will become available in about three months or so and the big rush is in February).  If I was willing to up rent from a third of income to a half then there might be stuff out there, but its not exactly the most sensible financial strategy!  I guess it would be too much to find a 57 East Avenue type house again, but its kind of what I'm holding out for.  I've been told there is good stuff out there (other people in the department say they pay similar rent as the places I'm looking at) but that people tend to hang onto it.  So still hopeful and we'll see what the next week brings.

So yeah, thats about it, I've just realised I might have sounded a bit moany in this blog, its actually been good so far!